Linguistic DNA - Concept Modelling Demonstrator

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	heaven_n	lord_n	work_n	9,156	5	5.3243	4	true

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65225	The repairer of the breach a sermon preached at the cathedral church of Glocester, May 29, 1660, being the anniversary of His Maiesty's birth-day, and happy entrance into his emperial city of London / by Thomas Washbourn.	Washbourne, Thomas, 1606-1687.	1660 (1660)	Wing W1026; ESTC R38494	23,222	34

and when things were ripe for the work he said unto the Nobles the Rulers the Priests and the rest of the people Ye see the distress that we are in how Jerusalem lieth waste and the gates thereof are burnt with fire Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me And they said Let us rise up and build So they strengthened their hands for this good work vers. 17 18. Yet could not he with all his assistants carry on the work so smoothly but that he met with some disturbance a phanatick party to hinder and oppose him and to head them they had a notable Leader one Sanballat vers. 10. When Sanballat the Hâ—romite and Tobiah the servant the Ammonite heard of it it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel And therefore they fall first to jeer and scoff at them vers. 19. They laughed us to scorn and despised us saying What is the thing that ye do But Nehemia answered vers. 20. The God of heaven he will prosper us therefore we his servants will arise and build but ye have no portion nor right nor memorial in Jerusalem From scoffs they proceed to secret plots and force of arms vers. 7 8. But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdoties heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up and that the breaches began to be stopped then they were very wroth and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it And this they contrived in a clandestine way saying They shall not know neither see till we come in the midst amongst them and slay them and cause the work to cease vers. 11. Whereupon Nehemiah plays the part of a pious and vigilant Commander falling to his prayers and setting a strict watch vers. 9. Neverthelesse we made our prayer unto our God and set a watch against them day and night and raised a new militia vers. 13 14. Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall and on the higher places I even I set the people after their families with their swords their spears and their bowes And I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people Be not afraid of them remember the Lord is great and terrible and fight for your brethren your sons and your daughters your wives and your houses When all this would not make him desist he receives an intimation that they intended to assâ—ssinate his person chap. 6 10. They will come to slay thee yet he still retains his wonted courage saying Should such a man as I flee Thus he stood like a Colosius unmoved and undaunted till he had done the work And now we have found the man that in the singular number may well be stiled Reparator ruinarum the Repairer of the Breach But can we find out ne'r another Yes we have him Ezr. 1. 8. by the name of Shesbazzar the Prince of Juda or chief Governor deputed to that office by King Cyrus and commissionated to build the Temple chap. 5. 14. and build he did vers. 16. Then came the same Shesbazzar and laid the foundation of the house of God which is in Jerusalem This Shesbazzar is the same with Zerubbabel who as a Prince is named in the first place among those that came from Babylon as the Captain General chap. 2. 2. and chap. 5. 2. Then rose up Zerubbabel c. And Hag. 1. 14. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel governor of Juda c. If we look into his genealogy Matth. 1. 12. we shall find him like Moecenas descended from antient Kings Josias begat Jechonias and Jechonias begat Salathiel and Salathiel begat Zerubbabel This Zerubbabel whose spirit God stirred up to this grand employment went through his work with all alacrity and activity Ezr. 3. he re-edifieth the Temple in despite of all adversaries the manner and means how it should be done by him is foretold Zech. 4. 6 7. This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel saying Not by might nor by tower but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts What art thou O great mountain before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain and he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shoutings crying Grace grace unto it Two great blocks were in the way to discourage Zerubbabel in the work the one was the weaknesse of his party that should assist him the other the strength of the enemy that would oppose him First The weaknesse of his own party they were but a small remnant of the poor captive Jews whose spirits were dejected with their tedious servitude and extream oppression and this might make Zerubbabel diffident of the event and reason thus against it The work is great that we are to undertake and our strength but little and therefore in all probability our endeavors are like to be frustrated and we to perish in the undertaking To this God speaks Not by might or army as 't is in the Margin nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts Know this work is not to be effected by human help meerly but by divine power not by strength of man but by the Spirit of God whose strength is made perfect in weaknesse by his Spirit who is Lord of hosts and commands all the Armies of heaven and earth Though you had no strength at all though you had no life at all left in you though you were but an heap of dead and dry bones God can bring you together put new life in you and cause you on a suddain to start up a numerous Army as in Ezekiâ—ls vision chap. 37. 10. yea though these bones were laid in the grave covered never so deep in the earth God can raise you thence To such a desperate condition was Israel reduced at that time that God was fain to quicken and revive their dead hope by the parable of those dry bones vers. 11 12. Then he said unto me Son of man these bones are the whole hovse of Israel behold they say our bones are dried and our hope is lost we are cut off for our parts Therefore prophesie and say unto them Thus saith the Lord God Behold O my people I will open your graves and cause you to come out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel The argument holds a majori ad minus he that can raise the dead out of their graves can bring you out of captivity Nay more not onely from dry bones but from very stones God can raise up children unto Abraham rather than his Church should not be builded This block thus removed out of the way the other yet behind was the mighty power of Zerubbabels enemies which is therefore called a great

Many houses shall be desolate even great and fair without inhabitant This this was the cause that the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts that is the house of Israel and the men of Juda his pleasant plant was so eaten up so troden down vers. 5. This was the cause the Christian Church went to wrack by persecution under Heathen Emperors Almighty God making them his Rod to scourge his backsliding people into repentance and better obedience for we are not unlike a childs Top that never goes upright without whipping So St. Cyprian speaking of the times of Decius Quia traditam nobis divinitus disciplinam pax longa corruperat jacentem fidem pene dixerim dormientem censura coelestis erexit Because long peace had corrupted the good order and discipline of the Church delivered to us by divine Authority the wisdom of God thought fit by the hand of his justice to awake the dull and drousie and almost dead faith of Christians And from the same cause Eusebius derives the Original of Dioclesians persecution in whose words as in a glasse we may see the face of our own times with all its deformities take the Latine for want of the Greek Postquam vero res nostrae per nimiam libertatem ad mollitiem ac segnitiem degenerarunt alii alios sunt odio contumeliis prosecuti c. After that our affairs through too great a liberty degenerated into sloth and delicacy and that one began to prosecute another with hate and contumely and when we our selves onely opposed our selves with words of strife and contention when dissimulation and hypocrisie was grown to the heighth of malice Et qui pastcros nostri videbantur repulsa pietatis norma matuis inter se contentionibus fuerunt inflammati c. And they that were or pretended to be our Pastors and Ministers casting off the rule of piety blew the coals of discord among themselves till it grew to a flame and every one made his own ambition play the Tyrant as he listed when such was the hardnesse of our hearts that we were not touched with any sense or feeling thereof nor endeavoured to appease Gods wrath but as if we thought God did not regard and would not punish our sins but were such an one as the Heathen phansied him Nec ben pro meritis capitur nec tangitur ira We ceased not to add sin unto sin and then behold the divine judgment after its usual manner began to visit us by degrees Ita ut persecutio Ã fratribus qui in militia erant exordia sumeret So that our persecution took its rise and beginning from our brethren that were in the militia then then I say according to that of the Prophet Lam. 2. The Lord covered the daughter of Sion with a clowd in his anger and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his foot-stool in the day of his anger The Lord swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob and hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Juda he hath brought them down to the ground he hath polluted the Kingdom and the Princes thereof he hath encreased in the daughter of Juda mourning and lamentation and he hath violently taken away his tabernacle he hath destroyed the places of the assembly The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts to be forgotten in Sion and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the King and the Priest By this we have discovered what is meant by the old waste places the ruined foundations the breach or breaches that were made in the Israel of God with the reason thereof which hath opened my passage to my second Query By whom the waste places should be built the ruined foundations raised the breaches repaired the paths restored Ex te erunt And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places c. In the seventh chapter of Nehemia there is a long catalogue of the people the Priests and the Levites that had leave from the King of Babylon to go up to Jerusalem and build the waste places especially the Temple their whole number is computed to be forty two thousand three hundred and threescore vers. 66. among whom the grandees or chief are expressed by name vers. 7. and of those I find most honorable mention of two above all the rest as upon whose shoulders rested the main of the work Nehemia and Zerubbabel and therefore we shall insist somewhat upon both as we meet with them recorded in sacred story And first of Nehemias He was cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes as he himself tells us chap. 1. 11. and a great favourite he was as appears chap. 2. for when he commiserating the miserable estate of his native country presented a cup of wine to the King with a heavy heart which discovered it self in a sad face the King said unto him Why is thy countenance sad seeing thou art not sick this is nothing else but sorrow of heart vers. 2. To which Nehemia replied vers. 3. first praying for the King though a heathen as his duty was then telling him the cause of his sadnesse Let the King live for ever Why should not my countenance be sad when the City the place of my fathers sepulcher lieth waste and the gates thereof are consumed with fire Then the King said unto me For what d dost thou make request vers. 4. It seems the King was willing to grant him whatsoever he should ask in reason Observe the piety of the man before he petitions the King he makes supplication to the King of heaven and that was the sure way to speed for the hearts of Kings are in the hand of God So I prayed saith he to the God of heaven and I said unto the King if it please the King and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight that thou wouldst send me unto Juda unto the City of my fathers sepulchers that I may build it Whereupon the King dispatcheth him with a Commission and credential Letters to the Governours beyond the River that they might convey him over to Juda and with a Letter to Asaph the keeper of the Kings Forrest that he might give him timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house and for the wall of the City and for the house of God vers. 8. and to secure him by the way for they that enterprise good and great designes as this was are like to meet with strong opposition the King sent Captains of the Army and Horsemen with him vers. 9. Notwithstanding he like a prudent man resolves to carry on the businesse more by policy than power He comes to Jerusalem the Metropolis or head City of Judea and was there some time before he told any man what God hâ—d put in his heart to do at Jerusalem vers. 12. Then he takes a private survey of the ruined walls

admissae dirimit suffragia plebis A breach upon our estates by imposing taxes what they pleased A breach upon our consciences by enforcing Oaths and Covenants contradictory to former Oaths And to fill up the measure of our ruines a breach upon the Head-stone of the building the chief stake in our hedge was cut up when our King of ever glorious memory was cut off and most barbarously murdered before his own Royal gate a most inhuman unparallel'd Parricide Regicide I had almost said Deicide and if I had it might admit of a sober sence for Kings are earths Deities Gods pictures in a lesser form or model and God himself hath honoured them with his own Name I have said Ye are gods Psal. 82. 6. yet he did not fall like one of the Princes but as if he had been an ordinary or common malefactor Carnificis dextra Cromwelli-potentis obiram Procumbit And when he fell all fell with him ever since we have been a Tohu Bohu rudis indigestaque moles a meer Chaos of confusion a second Babel or like a Tennis-ball tost from hand to hand a reproach to our neighbours a scorn and derision to all that were round about us Psal. 44. 13. Nec ulla requies tempus autt ullum datur Nisi dum jubetur We were put to it beyond Hercules's labours no rest no breathing time no relaxation from our burthens allowed us by our worse than Egyptian-Taskmasters we must make brick without straw pay contribution doubled and trebled as they were pleased to vote it when many had no mony to discharge it but what as the young Prophet said of his ax head was borrowed Nor was it safe for any man to complain of this extream bondage and oppression it being our case in these times as it was the people of Ariminum in Caesar's genitu sic quisque latente Non ausus timnesse palam vox nulla dolori Credita We were fain to mourn in secret and not discover our grief in words or tears Was it not now high time for us to say with the Psalmist and indeed Nihil hic nisi vota supersunt 'T is time for thee Lord to work for they have made void thy Law yea all the Laws both of God and man When all endeavours of men failed and no hope of human help appeared then was it Gods time to work and work he did beyond all expectation even to admiration As he stirred up the spirits of Zerubbabel and Nehemias to repair the breaches in the Jewish Church and State so hath he done for us we have a Nehemias and a Zerubbabel as well as they ex te erunt and we have them of our selves As it was our unhappinesse that like the spider we spun the web of our miseries out of our own bowels and with our own hands pulled our own houses upon our own heads so it was our happinesse again that God hath raised up from among our selves Heroes and men of renown to stand in the gap to turn our captivity as the Rivers in the South to build up our waste places and repair our breaches For had we sent abroad for builders as Solomon did to Hiram 2 King 2. they might have built a Babel instead of a Temple and overthrown more with one hand than they set up with two What tongue can tell and what heart would not ake to think what desolations had been wrought in the earth if the way to the Throne had been hewed out by the sword of aliens and strangers to the Common-wealth of England Nay had Sir George Booth's design gon on in probability it might have cost hot water multo sanguine vulneribus c. and we had seen another Aâ—eldama or bloody field and even then the King had been fain to swim unto his Crown through a Red-sea of his subjects blood an ungrateful passage both to him and them Vsque adeâ— miserum esse civili vincere bello But blessed be God that as in Solomon's Temple there was no ax nor hammer nor iron tool heard in the house while it was in building 1 King 6 7. so in raising the foundations of this great work and bringing it to perfection no sword nor battle-ax no instrument of vvar lifted up no canon nor musquet nor pistol discharged Time vvould fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak of Samson and of Jeptha of all our vvorthy Patriots in Parliament in City in Country that by Votes Declarations or other vvays joyn'd heads and hands and hearts to the contriving compassing compleating of this glorious vvork Give me leave to single out one from the rest unus instar omnium I hope vvithout envy I may name him vvhose name vvill be like an oyntment poured forth precious to posterity the Lord General Monck vvho hath upon our stage acted both parts of Nehemia and Zerubbabel to the life As another Nehemias he carried on his work prudently and closely he came up to our Jerusalem or Metropolis and was there some time before he told any man what God had put in his heart to do Artis esse celare artem a man shews his art in concealing his art An unseasonable discovery frustrates a good design whiles a discreet silence fits it for maturity Had he taken off his hood or veil at the first approach God knows what resistance he had found but as long as he carried it in a clowd and hung like a Meteor between heaven and earth or as the Papists picture Erasmus between heaven and hell each party took him for their own and so neither opposed him True it is he put many in a maze and the whole City in great fears when in a seeming compliance with and obedience to the command of those that pretended to the supream authority like Samson he went away with the gates of the City bars and all but he so on made them amends by setting them in statu quo or in a much better condition than he found them Vna eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit The same hand that brake their head gave them a plaister Then again like Nehemias he calls the Nobles and Rulers together brings in the Secluded Members to consult how our breaches might be made up and to secure their sitting sets a guard and raiseth a strong Militia Those members having made some notable Acts in order to a further settlement dissolve and quickly after a full and free Parliament succeeds them and prosecutes if not perfects what the other had so well begun Thus you see how he personates Nehemias in these particulars And may he not passe for a Zerubbabel too I am sure like Zerubbabel he did his work not by might nor by power but by Gods Spirit * Sanballat marched towards him with a more potent Army than his which stood like a great Mountain in his way but he had vertue enough to remove this mountain it became a plain before him and he might

Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Text snippets containing the quad